Generator Rex: The Modern Prometheus
by DatDude
Summary: In war people die, it is just a fact. When Holiday is taken, Rex reaches out with a power he hardly understands and sets off a chain of events that alters things forever. Note I've updated with directors cuts of chapters 3-6. Its a much darker story
1. Chapter 1

Generator Rex: The Modern Prometheus Chapter one: "Waking"

Binary code sang in the darkness.

The world was faint like waking from a dreamless sleep.

Then came the cold, and the noise.

Metal on metal, married with dueling voices, angry voices.

"SIX LET ME AT LEAST TRY!"

"You have done ENOUGH!"

Then almost painfully came thought.

_S-Six sounds angry, Six doesn't do angry._

Doctor Holiday sat up on the mortuary slab, and her body bag fell off. She tired to talk but her jaw didn't move right.

"S SS I x !"

Her right eye cleared and she saw Six pounding Rex into the far wall. At the sound of her voice Six turned around. She noticed his shades where cracked, one of the green lenses missing. Fir the first time she could see one of his eyes, it was brown, and she couldn't help but think _Brown, I'd have guessed he had green eyes._

He spoke for once their was emotion in his voice. He was afraid.

"Sara, how is this even possible?"

Six turned his head, unable to look at her. As Rex pulled himself up off the floor the Doctor tried to put her hands up to her face, and only her right arm responded. Things where not in the correct place, her jaw was dislocated at the very least, and looking down at her bare chest she saw a large cross shaped incision held shut with four or five large staples the kind used to close up a corpse after a common autopsy. As she passed out Holiday heard Rex shouting.

"It'll be alright!"

Their was nothing but the dark of the void, and the cold. Then came a voice from on high, it was Rex.

"If I just bring her back, she can fix the rest."

Glowing white lines shot from either side of the blackness lighting the darkness as they collided, and formed a perfect glowing circle. Rex's lines of power faded leaving the circle the only source of illumination against the night. Though it all Holiday as if watching from a place unseen couldn't help but think _What the hell happened to me?_

The circle was instantly filled with a diagram of her body complete with layers of skin and muscle. The whole thing reminded her of a poster she had on her wall in college.

_The visible Holiday, but that doesn't answer my question._

The image reacted to her whims, and the void filled once again with a sounds no human would ever hear. The images head glowed dark red on the left side highlighting a skull fracture that she knew right away was fatal. The jaw glowed yellow and looked like a boxers after a bad punch needed only to be reset. Her left eye also red looked like it was punctured from behind probably by a bone splinter.

The rest of the image was more disturbing. All of her organs flashed yellow, and having done more then one autopsy on dead solderers she knew what she was looking at. Everyone in Providence signs a waver authorizing use of their body for testing. To top it all off her entire left arm was only a dark silhouette.

_I . . died and they cut me open to see if working with nanotechnology all day had any lasting effect. Good thing I never smoked yes sir! No wait I have to focus. This thing whatever it is, it responding to me, so think. I didn't feel any pain, why? _

A tiny window popped up with two alien symbols inside it. One was highlighted the other not.

_I'm going to guess that one on the right means OFF. Now whats keeping me alive?_

Seven thousand two hundred seconds later she opened her eyes. She didn't know how she knew that but she did. Holiday was sure she was in a bed this time, not on a slab. The room was full of the sounds you'd find in any Providence long term exam room. Once again she tried to touch her face, and her left arm didn't respond. Her right wrist made it about an inch of mattress before being stopped by a restraint.

_At least it's not the morgue._

She head someone move though the room. This time her jaw worked right.

"Six? Rex?"

BoBo hopped up on a chair next tot he bed.

"Wrong on both counts sorry to say."

The look on the monkeys face was not a good one.

"They got the kid in the box next to your sister, and Six has been talking to White for over an hour. As for you aaaaa . . ."

She cut him off.

" What happened BoBo?"

He took his Fez off, as if to be respectful.

"It was the pack or well Skallamander I guess, they wanted that thing we went into the bug jar to get. Six fed the lizard man a hand grenade, if it matters to ya. The kid, well they should have let me take him out for a shot and a beer, but you know them. He suck down to the morgue and flipped your switch, and hoped for the best if you follow me. You're an EVO, and near as I can over here nothing well you know deceased has ever gone EVO before. That's the good news I'm sorry to tell ya. They are going to bring in Fell to figure out what you are now, till then your tied to that bed on Knights orders."

The Doctor rolled her one working eye, and thought.

_Kell _. . . .

The thought of being one of Kell's test subjects on a dissection table made the heart monitor in the corner beep a bit faster.

"I need to get to my lab, if I can get the jump on Kell I might be able to stick with being a researcher, and not be research."

The monkey tried not to make eye contact.

"That's a tall order right now. With the attack and all Whites got the place locked down No offense but your not going to fit in the air vent I used to get here. "

Holiday could help but remember how Six looked away when she'd sat up in the morgue.

"Can you get to Rex? He can open anything."

"I'm surprised you're asking all things considering, but I could probably talk Callan into letting me take his food in. I'd have though you might not want him around."

"BoBo!"

"Alright, alright, I'll tell the boy you want him here."

Fifteen minutes after the monkey left she remembered she was still strapped to the bed.

A long while later a sword the size of a ironing board poked through the floor, and Rex pulled himself out of what Holiday thought was solid bedrock.

"How the hell that work? Do you have a big drill I don't know about?"

The boy looked her in the eyes or eye as it were and never turned away.

"The whole place is earthquake proof so its build on big springs. Just about enough room to crawl though if you really need to, but its not pretty if BoBo's had Mexican."

Holiday sat up in bed as much as the restraints allowed her. Everything was different now, she knew that much.

"We don't have time. They are getting Doctor Kell to tell them what I've turned into. I need to know before he does, or I'm going to end up as research, and not a researcher. That makes my sister a goner, so everything else needs to wait, OK?"

He never looked more like a child.

"Y-yea."

"Now get these damn restraints off me, I need to know if I can walk."

Five minutes later Holiday was convinced everything worked but her arm, and her eye. The arm just lay there like a toy with the batteries out, and it had a look about it that made her want the batteries back in fast.

The pair crawled underneath the ground floor of providence HQ her arm tied with Rex's belt. The entire way the Doctor couldn't help but wonder how much time Rex spent as a rat in the walls of Providence.

The boy came to a stop, and used his over sized metal hands to pop a bulkhead out of joint.

"This is the elevator shaft that leads to the lab. It's a long ladder climb from here, but if I can make it with Bobo on my back I can carry you."

Holiday surprised herself by snapping at the boy.

"I don't need anyone to CARRY ME!"

As she shoved him out of the way she couldn't help but think of the over simplified diagram of her body floating in the void, and wondering just how many reasons she had to take it easy. Squeezing her way into the shaft Holiday looked up at the ladder and went for it. Her working hand stayed behind her back as she climbed the ladder by running full tilt her bare feet never missing a rail. When she reached the correct floor she stopped on a dime and her good hand found a place to hold on until Rex flew up the shaft with what she was positive was the same look on his face she gave him when he ran off doing something stupid.

"ARE YOU NUTS! YOU ARE LITTERLY BEING HELD CLOSED BY STAPLES!"

Though all the illogic she smiled, and joked.

"Shhhh don't want anyone to hear!"

The boy smacked his forehead as karma's lethal sense of humor put the shoe on the other foot for once.

"I am going to open the door now! Why the heck I'm not calling Six, I don't know!"

The door opened, and Holiday sat on the ledge holding her midsection. She wasn't in pain the pain was off right now, but something didn't feel right.

"Relax the shafts bomb proof that means sound proof. Six is trust-able, but we might need him later. We are doing this because I can't be more screwed, and your bullet proof until someone else can shut down rogue nanites. I'm sweating that's good, things are working the way they should without me telling them too. "

The boy landed next to her, and started booting up the scanner. Starting her lab up in the morning had been one of Rex's "chores" for years.

"Look I am freaked out here, but you have more right to be Doc so . . ."

Holiday stood up, and for once was the one to hop in the scanner.

"Relax Rex I'm still me, trust me I've been doing a Rosume test on myself all night. He was an early AI researcher that pointed out that artificial life couldn't feel real emotions because we didn't know how to tell them to. I'm scared, I'm pissed, and annoyed I missed my day off this week. I only take two a month you know!"

Rex tapped the controls mind full of all the extra work the Doctor made him do when he used his powers near her scanner.

"I noticed I escaped more often then you did. We should hit the snack shack some time, the foods real umm greasy. I'm guessing basic scan? Assuming you DON'T pull a humty DUMPTY by goofing off!"

She smiled as her nose started to bleed.

"Next time we take the Keep on patrol over NewYork I need to hit Lombardi's, that's Pizza., The third option down should be standard scan with possible head trauma I need to see my brain."

After a long awkward moment the scan was finished, and she slid herself out of the scanner. As she read the screen she tried to find a heart beat to comfort Rex. As comforting as you can be bent over a scanner, reading data about what he'd done to her without thought of the consequences.

"If this goes bad Rex, you can trust Six. The world still needs saving, even if I'm some place else."

Rex's voice cracked a bit.

"I don't want you anywhere else!"

So did hers.

"I know you don't. . .but I might have to. I didn't want my sister to go either, and you see how hard I try to get her back. It's part of growing up Rex, learning to deal with things like that. I know you have to do a lot of that before you should.. . "

The boy laughed a bit though it all.

"Haha Have you met me?"

"Kids throw tantrums Rex you don't. You blow off some steam ever once in a while, but they keep you . . come here."

"What?"

Holiday walked over to the boy and took him by the hand walking him to the computer screen.

"Here see that? Those are stable uninterrupted orders going from my brain to a lot of nanites. My brains some kind of controller passing information around digitally, and its stable."

She squeezed the boys hand a bit tighter.

"The rest of me not so much. Nantes can turn a man into living concrete, but they need something to tell them too. In most EVO's its bad data, I think mine are waiting for orders, and this console I saw in my head was half in another language. Rex try very hard to remember what where you thinking when you brought me back? "

The boy started squeezing back.

"Doc your . . .leaking."

She didn't look.

"That's because they split the stomach open to test the . . . Rex I'm about to crash back to my command console, and . . . "

He cut her off, as she could feel those glowing lines of his cover her hand.

"You can fix it, I can fix it just tell me how! That's what you do, that's what you and I do!"

"No no, not this time, and not again. Now be a good boy get me back to bed and don't get caught."

There was a jarring sensation as she returned to the light circle in the void in what she suspected was a less that ideal manner. The diagram showed a flashing red stomach.

"Oh you just had to know I ate pop-tarts for breakfast that day. Umm can we fix that?"

Four other organs flashed red as the stomach went green.

"OK lets not do that then. Umm this thing needs instructions. What can we do with what resources we have? "

The circle in the dark did nothing, and there was not sounds of nanite base code singing in the dark. That answered her question by proxy.

"Sheesh I guess going for a jog was stupid, damn. What can be cut and not compromise life support? "

A few things flashed, and Holiday had to make a touch call.

"The eye then. . .and I didn't even get to look at my arm on the scan. If only I can look at it again. "

An image of the scan popped up like a snap shot from here memory. Something was lodged in her shoulder cutting off the nerves and disconnecting her arm from the rest of the system as it where.

"Well you are helpful if not EXSTREAMLY FRUSTRATING TO USE! OK priories cut off support to my damaged eye to fix my stomach . . .no list my damage by severity."

A list popped up and she tried to ignore the fact that her life was on the line.

"OK cut off support to the damaged eye UNTIL we are stable again. Then as repairs are complete move exstra resources to the next problem on the list and repeat until systems are 100%. Tell me that not to complicated for you?"

The sounds in the background kicked in again, and she hoped they meant everything was running fine.

"OK while that's running I don't supposed you could show me what the teenager with the crush is doing with me while I'm out cold?"

A window popped up with what looked like an image from her working eye now half open. It looked like he was at the bottom of the elevator shaft about to drag her back under the base. Rex looked like he was talking but their was no sound. He took a moment to touch her face and looked like he was trying to be kind.

"Well can't fault him for trying. . . . I'm going to need to teach Rex a few things about subtlety when this is over. "

Next: "Life on the other side"


	2. Chapter 2

Generator Rex: The Modern Prometheus Chapter Two: "Life on the other side"

Like before she knew just how long she'd been out, 2443 minutes.

_Why so long this time? _

Unlike her time in the void their was nothing to even attempt to answer her question.

Doctor Holiday found herself inside the last generation scanner she had mothballed the very hour Doctor Fell got fired. The thing was a slow power hog of a machine with a scan resolution .02 higher then the one she used . . . unless you read the phone book sized manual and knew how to work the newer model.

_No NO ONE without a death wish touches my scanner. If Fell had the thing moved to hook this clunker back up it will be such a pain to get it running right again! Wait calm down, they think this is your first time waking up since the morgue, play it up. _

"What is going on? Six get me the hell out of this thing!"

The pain hit her when she tried to move. She didn't remember turning that back on, but a half a dozen commands shes tried or asked what would happen if she tried them might have done something. The room was spinning too fast for her to think any harder then that. When it stopped Six was looking down on her. His suit and shades flawless as ever, and he was smiling that tiny easy to miss smile of his.

"Can you hear me Doctor Holiday?"

"Ibuprofen 200 milligrams, and get me a damn coffee."

She flexed the muscles on her formerly numb arm and every movement was agony but it was there. Six started asking stupid questions.

"How do you take your coffee again?"

"The same as I have for years black as my soul, and what the hell happened. . . wait . . "

The Doctor brought her good hand to her chest, and didn't feel and staples.

"I woke up in a body bag, and you where pounding Rex like he asked for an Abysis vacation."

He kept asking questions, and seemed so happy to be doing it. Moments like this made her believe the tin man really did have a heart.

"What is the last thing you remember before that?"

She played along just a bit more, but just a bit.

"Grunt lab work at 4am on Rex's new control nanite, and the oh so comfortable feeling of sleeping at my desk. This is my lab Six, I do the tests here, unless its Rex testing my patients he's allowed to do that anywhere."

The man in green stopped smiling.

"We got blind sided, they had a mole one of our privates was some kind of EVO worshiper, thinks Van Klies is some Messianic figure that can give power to the fateful. We lost you Sara, Doctor Zimmerman quit this morning, he . . .did your autopsy, and couldn't deal. Please take it slow, I talked to Knight and . . . "

She cut in, so happy to finally be able to vent what she'd been feeling.

"I died? I DIED? Six get me a wheel chair and my glasses I need to look at those readings! Oh hell where is Rex, and what did that . . . . White Knight do with my sister?"

"Your sister is fine, Rex is in his room, with BoBo and Noah taking 48 hour shifts with him. He's under orders to behave and that's all. You are an EVO now Sara, and there are rules for what happens if one of us goes EVO."

The Doctor felt her blood pressure go up, and was almost glad to feel the anger building even if she was holding it in now.

"Since god damn when?"

"Since Knight took over, and it was over our clearance level until now. The comity has sent someone to review your . . case, and you will NEED reviews every so often from here on out. If you are not deemed a risk, you will keep your job, your clearance, your 401k, everything."

She didn't pretend to snap, she just did, and it felt so good.

"I get a spot tested like a junkie?"

The man took his glasses off, and for the first time she saw the scar over one if his eyes. Blind as Callan would have been if he hadn't blinked at the just the right moment.

"It is a lot to take in, but the brass is saying they burned Christians as street lights in Rome until the emperor became one. You are a world away from that, and I have your back the same as ever, but please play nice with Doctor Fell."

After a long minute she spoke.

"I have stayed up nights wondering what I'd be like if I went EVO like my sister. . . so if it gets me a look at myself in that scanner, I will behave for now. She needs to be fixed, and if I need to fix ME too then big deal."

Agent Six woke up at dawn, the same as he had since he could remember. He looked over at the alarm clock that came with the room, that he had never needed to set just to check the time. He was up at the right time, same as ever.

Hoping out of bed he made a quick shower, then pulled out straight razor turned on some hot water and started to shave without needed shaving cream. As he went he started to plan his day.

_Check money in wallet, and money belt. Find out if Carol in accounting will keep letting me submit recites and not leave a digital trail with that company card nonsense. Talk with the night watch Captain after breakfast to see if Rex tried anything after I went to bed, then talk to BoBo after he goes off shift to see IF he REALLY tried anything too bad. Then it's Friday, and the mid month mark so . . . I've got four vaccinations and a tetanus shot due. . . that can wait my Doctors out sic. . .check on my Doctor after I get out of accounting Holiday should be up by then._

Six wondered if they could weaponize Carol from accounting for use against the pack.

"MISTER Six again I have to remind you it is not NINTEEN ninety nine and we need an immediate digital trail on our LIMITED financial resources. "

"Carol to do my job I need to be invisible some times. That means dealing with people that don't take visa some times."

"Then MISTER Six we have requisition forms that if you fill out in advance are rather speedy."

Sargent Wells was the only Mormon Six had ever met in any military that kept up with the taboo those people had about coffee. At the end of a ten hour shift he was just eating a plate of eggs with a glass of OJ and some how still functional.

"The kid hasn't even used his power to rip of any vending machines Six. The boys in IT tell me he not doing anything but listing to itunes and playing his xbox. Not that they haven't been wrong every time he's gotten into something, but still by the books all is well."

A while later BoBo was sneaking a cigar in a none smoking room and look happy to be off for a few days.

"Green man the kid is just like you think he is, and he needs to vent or he'll crack. SHOT AND A BEER for the last time, or don't cry to me when he runs off again."

An hour later the green man walked into what he still though off as Holidays lab to the sound of raised voices. Holiday was in the wheel chair she'd been in for a past four days, and it was getting to her.

" . . .and the data is only bad if nanties get into this thing HERE, that doesn't work because its control terminal over HERE separated by nine layers of shielding is not calibrated right. We could get that fixed in five minutes if REX was here and then I could get you that scan data in an HOUR NOT A DAY."

Fell was nicer then last time.

"Doctor Holiday for the final time you are not to have contact with Special Agent Rex. Do I need to remind you what happens if you violate that?"

He moved in to break them up, but she fired off a come back before he could get there.

"Then I write him a note, and leave the room Doctor Fell!"

Six got between them before Fell could react.

"Doctor I can vouch for Rex fixing this thing, he did do it at least twice that I know of."

Fell looked tired of this argument.

"If that shielding doesn't hold. . . . "

Holiday barked.

"It works I should know I OWN THE PATENT ON IT!"

". . . the scanner will both be ruined, and it might explode."

Six tired to play peace maker.

"Rex spilled coke on it twice, and fixed it both time. If it didn't work then, it hasn't worked in eighteen months."

"You let him bring food in here Agent Six?"

"He lives out of the room some days Doctor Fell."

"Very well write him a note, but have a technician watching him."

Six tried to sound as professional as possible.

"I would like a report if I could get one, if not I will come back later no rush."

Fell started talking first.

"Her brain is a nanite controller slower and less efficient then we thought possible, but practical for running a closed system. "

Holiday chimed in.

"It looks like Rex's control nanite copied part of itself but it didn't or LIKE I KEEP SAYING COULDN'T copy everything. "

Fell picked back up, these two did work well together even if they didn't like each other. What six could figure out is why Fell wasn't going in for the kill more often, the man had ice water in his veins.

"The THEORY is that all nanotechnology has some safe guard against what is called "gray goo" a term to describe nanites that just build more of themselves over and over until nothing but them remains. The very existence of EVO's however is due to bad or incomplete programming however."

Holiday calmed down a bit.

"My godfather got me a copy of Asimov's "Robots" novels for my 8th birthday. I asked him why someone didn't just delete the laws governed their behavior at some point. Even if its stupid I said some one would try as some point. He told me that they where based on the first generation of computers and they where hardwired in a way that couldn't be changed. If these where production grade nanites someone needed to saved ten cents on the dollar to turn a profit on I'd give you that Doctor Fell, but they are second generation prototypes made by people as much dreamers as scientists. If it is possible to keep every single nanite from building something as advanced as itself it would explain so much about EVO's in general wouldn't it?"

Fell calmed down a bit.

"Your god father may he rest in peace would know better then either of us Doctor."

Six raised an eyebrow.

"Did he know your godfather?"

Holiday smiled, and he couldn't help but notice just how pale she looked.

"A lot of people knew Steven Hawking, but he didn't name a lot of people. So Six the rest of that report is my brain I can't change or view settings on itself, the rest of me is set to minimum more or less so I've got the most nanite resources fixing the damage from the fight, and not being alive. On top of that we are more or less trying to work out what needs to be where for me to be alive. Hows thing with you?"

Six was still Six even after all of this.

"Rookies everywhere, if you know you have a few bad apples you start taking them from the tree. We haven't found and more moles and there is never only one."

Holiday tried to sound interested.

"Connery and Costner in "The Untouchables" Agent Six you belong to another decade."

"Yea I kind of do. Are you in pain? Do you need anything?"

"I'm really annoyed I have to eat though a tube in my arm until I fix a few things, and the highlight of my week has been the fact that I'm here to deal with all of this. I've got to start taking longer shutdowns to run more maintenance, and maybe play around with some stuff Doctor Fell found in a paper Rylander wrote once that might be relevant, mind . . . posting a guard or something I'm paranoid about being out that long. Six I can't wake up if someone . .disturbs me."

Fell chimed in like he'd heard this before.

"Doctor Holiday we ARE NOT tampering with you in your sleep cycle."

Six nodded.

"I'll put a rookie by your door at night. That girl Rex met in Basic Training you read her file after it was over right?"

She looked relieved.

"I remember, and thanks Six."

Private Jones popped her head in at ten minutes to nine the same as she always did.

"Do you need help with anything Doctor Holiday?"

"No thank you Kenwyn, just keep an eye out till five thirty. I might need help with the bandages on the arm in the morning, and the normal help with my hair and all."

"I'll make sure you have clean ones Doc."

"Thank you sweet heart."

One hundred and twenty six minutes later Holiday opened her good eye, and scanned the room. Nothing was out of place, and at the very limit of her hearing she could tell Kenwyn had her Ipod plugged into her helmet. She hopped out of bed like a kid about to sneak out without her parents noticing.

"I need to wear something that's not hospital scrubs, denim yes!"

She slipped into a pair of jeans older then Providence, a sports bra, and a dark blue T-shirt from the ex-boyfriend slash give to the good will drawer in her dresser. A pair of white tube socks completed her dressing as scuff marks on shoes where harder to cover up then scraps she could heal in a few minutes, or a hole in a sock blend in with all the other none work crud in her dresser. The Doctor then grabbed the cheap nerf basket ball net off her far wall and pulled the suction cups that healed it to said wall off.

"Time to be the Black Cat for a few."

Rolling up the carpet in the left corner of the room, Holiday used the suction cups to pop up the floor plait that had been prepared in advance. She then slipped between her room, and the shock absorbers separating each level. It wasn't as easy as the ground floor, but how Rex got around was so easy to see now. Fifteen minutes later covered in a layer of dust, she was popped off a similar plate in Rex's ceiling without making a sound. Hanging by her legs she lowered herself down behind Noah. The boy was watching a movie shirtless and in her opinion skinny as a rail, on Rex's TV while his EVO friend slept. He had a look on his face like he could use a few hours of it himself, and didn't expect to get it.

"Boo!"

The boy twitched just a little, but didn't speak above a whisper.

"It is sooo MY ass if you to get caught with this. You get that right?"

The doctor sounded nice when she responded at least.

"Thank you Noah. We'll be back on time I promise."

She hoped down into a hand stand and into her feet without making a sound. Noah didn't even turn around as she walked over to the sleeping Rex, and pinched his nose closed with a smile on her face.

He opened his mouth, and started to snore.

"Oh no you don't."

She grabbed a discarded empty bag of chips, and sprinkled a few crumbs into his open mouth. The boy then sat up and spoke totally bewildered.

"Sour cream and onion?"

The Doc smiled and answered him.

"Oil and vinegar."

He smiled a roguish smile.

"I hate that flavor."

"Me to! Maybe go out to dinner?"

"Oh yea! Noah be back before shift change."

The boy didn't answer as they climbed into the ceiling.

Fifteen minutes later they popped out of a vent in mess hall cook station next to a robot fry cook, that turned to them.

"Unidentified personnel present ID or verbal code. "

The Doctor spoke.

"Debug 23 health inspection spot check. As you where we wish to see you in normal operation."

She turned to see Rex had piled a few boxes of ketchup into a table, and two empty tomato crates to sit on. He pulled out her crate nice and romantic like.

"Your chair my lady."

"My Rex how gentlemanly."

She sat down and started working on the menu as it where.

"Food preparation unit, what menu items will expire in the next four hours?"

It ticked a bit and while it was cooking a burger, and answered.

"Starch product alternate 2 "spiced curly fries" .1 pounds, vegetable starch combo unit spaghetti and meat sauce .6 pounds, salad lettuce .03 pounds."

Rex raised an eyebrow.

"How did you work out this end of the building was full of vegans?"

"They are worried about moles hence the AI in place of food staff. I asked to help program the stuff because I was bored. Places like this always try to cut corners by fudging the health inspections. You do it right no one has a bad meal or gets sick, but if you have robots you have a digital paper trail the health inspector can look at. Since its an emergency security issue, they don't care about the bill RIGHT NOW. They will in the long term, when some paper pusher notices something, but until then if there are no incidents . . . .like you eating all the good stuff and some coming to find out where all the burgers went. . . we will be fine!"

Rex frowned.

"OK Ok I'll eat the fires!"

"We will both have the spaghetti I need carbs, and the sauce is the closest thing to a vegetable we've got, and you need that."

Rex grumbled.

"Never any Mexican, its raciest!"

"This is where the over night shift people eat, would you eat tacos a with extra sauce and then lift stuff all night? Yes yes you would, you'd eat taco sauce on corn flakes if I let you. Food service unit will sample the spaghetti and meat sauce please, .5 pounds of it. "

"True on both counts Doc. Sooo not that I mind the late meal and all how long we doing the cloak and dagger thing?"

"Once I get that . . thing I can't talk about done, then I can tell them. They need to know I'm not going to change loyalties because I'm an EVO, and I need to know I'm going to be out in a molecular dissection machine if they think I'm more valuable in tiny bits. "

"And over all of this is your sister, and oh yea that war we are fighting in general. That just sucks!"

"Welcome to the adult world Rex. It is not always kind, so prepare yourself the best you can."

The robot gave them an over half pound bowel of spaghetti and a pair of forks Rex shook his head as she dug into the spaghetti like a cartoon character will a bottomless stomach.

"If this is the school thing again what time do I have for that? Between the job I need to run away from to get time off, the powers I need to figure out or the wars not going to end, I am tapped out."

She came up for air, and to give Rex a turn, then answered him.

"Another part of the grown up world Rex is learning to make time if its really important. My kid sister is both in MENSA, and a high school drop out. All the ability in the world doesn't help if you don't do a few things the world expects you to Rex."

He looked up at her, and she could tell she struck a nerve.

"That's the first time you've ever told me anything about your sister."

"Here's another one Rex, when I do get her fixed you are not allowed to be alone with her. She will wrap you around her little finger, and the next thing you know your bottomed out in Reno wondering why no one you know is answering you calls. Nichole's done that twice to guys, and shes only eighteen. Shes been a giant spider for as long as I've known you Rex do that math."

The boy put his fork down.

"I sold three people to a crime lord once, we might hit it off."

She smiled with a tiny bit to sauce on her chin.

"No one here knew you before Rex, but now you don't have that in you. Some people learn not to not care, and if you lost that when you lost your memory you'll just have to make up your mind again when you get it back. Have a little faith I do."

Rex's eyes focused on the Doctors stomach, and as it started to shrink like deflating balloon.

"That's gorse by the way."

"Don't change the subject because I turned my metabolize up so I could enjoy myself."

Rex just got snotty after that.

"Someones enjoying her powers."

"My "powers" forced me to have a long talk about my ovaries Fell today, that is not enjoyment! AND you have a past no matter how much baggage you have locked up in there it's YOURS. You'll be glad for it one day good and bad. Don't start worrying about IF its like a fight go in there knowing your going to win and you'll do better then if your heads full of maybes. The rest is timing and details."

The boy perked back up a bit.

"Did you get that from Six?"

"Yes I did, and no I never told him about my sister. . . though she would try to get his attention. Little slut hit on my favorite teacher once and thank god he was gay!"

Rex blinked after finally doing the math.

If shes that much younger it would be like me hitting on Noah's Mom nasty.

"OH Nikki had no end of confidence, and wonder bras . . . If I bring her back fully grown I will make her more powerful I think."

"I'll have to remember there is an Anti-Holiday out there."

Holiday slid back into her room silent as a ghost, and pulled the filthy shirt off. By the time she grabbed a bottle of water from her dresser and a towel the lights came on.

"Doctor I think we need to talk."

She turned around really slow.

"Hello Six, is that girl Number Seven or something?"

"Nope, Seven's a Pakistani midget. I just looked in on you because I was . . . looking in on you. Doctor please tell me what that was all about?"

Holiday sat on her bed towel in hand.

"Bull you'd never stick your head in here without a reason."

"I am worried about you, get that though your head! We all have to play the game around here, and I know I'm the one that signed up for this from day one so I have the least cause to complain about it but YES it sucks. The system is against you now, but in the end it protects more people then it hurts. Deal with that, and start trusting people again please. If you don't it's going to end, badly."

She smiled and shook her head.

"My sister is an incurable that needs to drink blood to live, and costs 400k a year to keep. If Fell makes a phone call and says my brain is more valuable in a jar we are both dead. White won't argue, and if its us or the war Six you won't either. Your a good soldier, you'll honor my name, and remind them how far behind we'd be if I hadn't been promoted all those years ago. You wouldn't risk Rex, and the war not for me. So I'm stuck between two endgames with not ability to influence the outcome, so yea I stuff cards up my sleeve whenever I can, and DEAL however I can."

The man in green sat next to her, and took her hand.

"You're not thinking . . .the way you used to, you are missing several shades of gray."

Next: "Reflections."


	3. Chapter 3

Generator Rex: The Modern Prometheus Chapter Three: "Reflections"

Holidays ribs showed though her skin like a starvation victim.

"So Six do I look fat to you?"

The man in green handed her a box of power bars, a bottle of vitamins, and a gallon of half and half with chocolate sirup added in.

"I think you haven't been eating right."

"Haha."

She started wolfing it down. They'd been talking a long while and she hadn't had time to reset her inner workings. Six talked like he was speaking to a robot, clearly and with as little contractions or slang as he could.

"Your polarizing things, not seeing the shades of gray, and I do not know how to help that because it might be . . . .mechanical. How can I go forward, and keep your trust."

"I get what your trying to do Six, and I'm better then that, or I hope I'm better then that. The part of my brain that controls personality is the same as it was before trust me I've got enough scan data. It processing things in binary, yes but . . . OK we don't fully understand the brain as it is so I can't give you a black and white explanation, but I'm just NOT."

He was still just as calm as he had been for the past three hours.

"If in theory, and this is not a you who would know you better well enough to check?"

She took a comical swig of the milk jug, and seemed to take Six at his word.

"Here, with clearance for this mess? You, Rex, and Callan."

He kept going, in that same tone of voice, his heart breaking a bit as he did.

"And why those people Doctor?"

"Time. My partner, my charge, and my ex-boyfriend. Who else would there be with my life being all HERE for years."

If anyone knew about Holiday and Callan they had never told Six, and he was a man that listened for things. Also the fact that White Knight never made any snarky comments about it made Six think she was being very calm and open about things she'd be guarded or at least uncomfortable with talking about this openly before.

"I was wondering, your geared to eat a lot right now, and their was a minor report about food in one kitchen, was that you? That question IS totally off the record of course. I am just worried."

She smiled, increasingly convinced Six wasn't probing her for information. Six himself felt worried for something inside he found in this place a long time ago.

"Yes that was me, did Noah call you? I wanted some company, so Rex and I had dinner."

"Considering the circumstances, White Knight would want someone to ask why you'd think Noah reported you."

She wolfed down two bars at once, and Six knew she'd need to sleep soon for lack of more food.

"Well he looked a little worried a few times, and considering he was hanging around with REX he might have been worried we where doing more then just eating. I mean Rex is Rex so jokes I'm sure where told."

"I don't get it Sara what do you think Noah was worried about?"

"Six come on, Rex probably though we where on a date, and was just waiting for me to sleep with him! Not that I'm not flattered with the attention, and annoyed with the attention, and before Circe worried a tiny bit about the attention. Not that he's not cute but Rex is too young."

Six had heard enough, it was like suddenly he was talking to an echo of Sara Holiday. He was afraid on a level he didn't admit this was some THING and not some ONE anymore.

"Well I am very glad we resolved that Doctor, and I am going to need to go now. Do you need anything before I do? Also how long will you need to sleep."

She looked sooo happy, like they just had a heart to heart talk.

"No this snack if fine, and I'll be awake in 126 minutes or so. Good night Agent Six, I missed you."

"Yea I miss you too."

Rex woke up to Six's hand over his mouth. He sat up, and saw Noah looking at the corner.

"What the heck?"

"No questions, just answers Rex, and for the love of god keep your bio's from spiking we use that when we can't listen you know that."

The EVO kid, was confused.

"Noah did you dime me out too five oh?"

Noah didn't talk, but six did.

"What in hell does that even mean?"

"Call the cops you know Hawaii FIVE OH?"

Six sat next to Rex very tired, and very drained.

"No he did not. I told him in no uncertain terms to sit down, and stay silent while we do this, because sending him out to the bathroom would set off a security sweep."

Rex shook the cob webs out.

"She isn't used to living under a microscope Six. I am and I still can't stand it some times. You need to just blow it off some times you know?"

Six looked at him like he swore in church, Rex in fact could suddenly remember being smacked by an old woman for doing just that. For once he didn't share his happy tidbit of his lost past, he had other things to worry about.

"SHE is not HERSELF, and you will remember that or I will make you! Now I need to walk a tightrope with no NET very shorty. I need information, everything you've been doing, leave nothing out or I might not have what I need understand me?"

Rex stood up fast.

"Dios Mio Six! If somethings wrong with HER it CAN'T be HER fault YOU get that right? 'Cause its all . . . mine."

Six took his glasses off and the boy learned he was half blind for the first time.

"The man that took my eye, killed my wife. It's his fault I lost HER and IT, but if I bump into something tomorrow, its mine, because I'm an adult, and it's been five years."

Rex only half understood, for very understandable, very human reason that he was completely entitled to.

"Well it's been three weeks for her! If she's . . . wrong some how I'll fix it, I'll throw nanites at her all night if I have to!"

Six put his glasses back on.

"You can not help her Rex, and if you force it they will just move her to another facility. Now give me everything that happened, and don't leave anything out if you want to keep working with the Doctor."

Rex looked over at Noah nervously.

"Sara just needed me. . . "

Agent Six stood in desert lighting his first cigarette in five years, pulled out a cheap disposable cell phone he bought with cash, and checked his watch. The frequency scanner they used to tap cell traffic in the area would be offline for the next eight minutes if Rex did his job right. Then he made a phone call that would get him killed if Knight ever found out about it.

"Charlie Tango nineteen sixty seven."

A voice on the other end of the line sounded only a tad confused to hear a code from the cold war meant to signal an agent in the field with no support was looking for an emergency bail out.

"Bannon her, what do you need?"

"Hello Race, this is Six. I need a message delivered to Doctor Quest off the books of course."

"Six? Sure I can do that for old times sake. To take that risk with Knight you must be in over your head."

"Yea old timer I am. Tell the Doctor. . .Fell is angling to get his old job back, and willing to sacrifice Holiday to get it. She took his job, and sending him to see if she could keep it was a stupid move the mans IQ aside. He is ignoring information, and keeps getting into a pissing contest with her over scanning equipment while she does most of the work . . .when she might not be in a sound state of mind to do that work."

The old Cold warrior took a deep breath, and Six just knew he'd put the fifty five year old in a position he though he was done with.

"Fell's done after this Six, no one with TWO black marks like that on their record will be able to keep their career. If I know Benton he'll tell the rest of the Committee he wants to come down there himself, or send Johnny. Either way Agent Six you be damn ready for scrutiny when then someone gets there, understand? "

"Thank you old man, it's worth it I swear. Six out."

He hung up the phone, and dumped it in the dirt. To cover up everything Holiday had been up to the most efficient thing to do was have everything Fell reported thrown out on suspicion of bias. White Knight would never by that, so it had to be done over his head. A review of this kind could hamper everything they do in Providence because of the extra attention from outside, and Fell his ego aside was an asset lost. Six hoped that his faith in Holiday to be the one to figure this out or at least give them what they needed to really have a chance. Rex was a puzzle and he couldn't unlock himself. If that boy lost both of his guardians Six knew that hope MIGHT be lost, but he didn't move heaven and earth trying to save Holiday it WOULD be lost.

"The kid would run if I didn't do this, and we'd lose this war. He brought her back with a power he didn't understand for purely innocent reasons, and now I need to play the father and tell him he's not innocent anymore. All to save what might be a ghost, while we both pray for resurrection."

Next: "Schrodinger's cat "


	4. Chapter 4

Generator Rex: The Modern Prometheus Chapter Four: "Points of convergence"

In the void Holiday labored at her command console.

" Status of all systems please."

The visual Holiday indicated all green, save for the eye it was tasked to ignore. The eye was a huge cost, and she'd need a prosthetic now. Her original was beyond saving and would need to be removed before it lead to infection. The resources that would have repaired it where spent on other things however.

"Status of immune system rebuild, and retrofit?"

The sounds of nanite base code sang in the dark, and she could tell but the key and pitch even before the symbols appeared in her view. The symbols themselves were red squares, their arrangement resembled a diamond with a central symbol square inside it like ZAG-RS.

"Well then nothing to do but see if it works."

The work done for the first time since the system was "installed" resources became free and once labored processes began to speed up. Three hundred seconds later she sat up in bed feeling great.

"Time to put my pretty on."

Rex sat in the petting zoo wishing for a cheese burger from this dinner he knows two states over. Instead he sat underneath a tree with eyeballs on it.

"No Rex you need to behave! You need someone in the room with you all the time because you might run off or . . . .turn someone into something.. . . Blinky what I wouldn't give from just one person to say It's OK Rex we know your not Van Klies lite!"

"Well young man judging by what I've been been told about you I'm sure that's not the case."

Rex looked up, and saw Kenwyn her rifle was in her hand set to full auto, and armor polished like she was going to be in a parade and not trudging though the zoo. The guy she was escorting out here looked old with a graying red hair and a lab coat worn over a suit. He reached down to shake Rex's hand.

Thinking for a second the boy pulled off his glove and shook the mans hand.

"I'm Doctor Benton Quest, I'm on the Presidents Committee on the Response to The Nanotech Crisis and I've come here to look into Doctor Holidays case."

Rex stood up and dusted himself off.

"Wait a minute you're with the Committee? You are Whites boss? 'Cause however you guys get food in their he acts like he gets ZERO fiber!"

The old man actually smiled.

"Yes I'm sure being stuck in there makes him cranky. If you have a moment I'd like to talk about you and Doctor Holiday."

"What do you want to hear, that I thinks it OK she gets treated the way I do now? Like some kind of a dog everyone's just waiting to bite someone? You save the world with something like that going on over your head."

"You sound like you care very much for your Doctor."

"I'm in love with her."

Six looked out over the desert from a balcony interned to house a rail gun in the event of a prolonged siege. A ghost from his past walked up behind him.

"Agent Sixkiller."

"It's just Six anymore Johnny, how Intelligence One these days?"

A blonde man in a black shirt joined him at the balcony.

"Same old same old, say its coming up on nineteen sixty seven hours. Lets get this review over with, and get a drink."

Six rolled his eyes or well eye.

"I'm an alcoholic remember?"

"I have a vague memory of you marrying the love of my life in a totally DRY ceremony yes. "

Johnny was an ass, but he was loyal, and Six knew this was his way of saying everything would be OK.

Doctor Holiday was so glad to be back in the skirt, top and lab coat she normally wore to work. This pair of boots was new and not broken in yet, but she knew she'd get used to it. After cutting out her bad eye with the same level of care some people would give to plucking a hair she tossed it in the trash.

"Lets see what they have in green, don't want to clash I guess."

Looking though the selection of cybernetic replacement eyes meant for people that lost one in combat. Picking out an older model she held it up to her own eye.

"Here we go, nothing fancy, light weight, and it's even made by the Tyrell Corporation. Oh for the days when I was just an intern."

Attaching the implant to her optic nerve while sitting at her desk with the aid of a small mirror, activated the implant and shut herself down. Her body sat limp in an office chair while in the void the circle of light responded with lighting speed now that the repairs where done, and its resources where freed up.

"Reactivate left optic never turn the pain back on, and scan for new hardware."

The eye popped up like she was installing a web came on a laptop.

"OK make sure nanotech repairs stop at the nerve, and reboot please."

One hundred and eighty seconds later she woke up and started getting use to not having one eye.

"Oh yea, that's better. Color balance is nice, and I . . . am not alone am I?"

Doctor Quest pulled up a chair next to her.

"Hello Christmas, is your hearing enhanced or are you just processing the input better?"

She cringed at the sound of her name.

"I had that changed the day I turned eighteen! Wait Doctor Quest? Either I forgot I signed up for more classes to get that last PHD or we . . . I'm on the Committee's radar, neither are good. What is it Sir?"

Her old teacher took out a pair of bifocal glasses and used a pen light to begin examine her eye. After a minute he spoke.

"For want of a nail the horse was lost. For want of a horse the knight was lost. For want of the knight the war was lost. So the kingdom was lost for want of a nail."

She looked confused, and almost insulted.

"Are you calling me a nail or a horse?"

I'm suggesting my dear girl that you and I spend a few hours going over project Lazarus before we have a meeting with Director Knight."

"Project Lazarus?"

He smiled warmly.

"Your knew assignment will be basically examining yourself, and you'll only be a consultant on Project Rex for a while at least."

She looked sad at the sound of that.

"I've got my immune system configured to repel other nanites. . .Rex can't . . . interface again, so you don't have to worry."

The older doctor looked worried.

"Dear that means even if he can learn to repair incurables, you'll never be human again."

She bit her bottom lip the way he remembered she always would when he come to him with a problem all those years ago. She spoke, and as harsh as it was it seemed more like her then the rest of the conversation.

"Theirs no evil in Rex Doctor Quest, if he had any before he lost his memories then I'm sure its only what a hard life would put in any of us. What he did he did for pure reasons, and if we had Gabriel Rylander's body I'd even ask him to do it again. Me though, I don't want anything violating me like that again, and now nothing can. You know what this means right Doctor?"

Quest sat in a conference room waiting for Knight to get his armor on to join him. It was something they could do with a video conference but Knight needed to be reminded ever so often he wasn't a king in a tower.

After a minute he entered and the cold formalities began.

"Hello Benton it been a few years."

"Yes it has Walter, hows the armor?"

"After the last field test shall we say I feel a lot better about the repair feature."

With that done they got to business.

"What is this about Benton? You drag me out here knowing how much maintenance on this suit cost. To top it off why have the floor cleared?"

"Two things, one your handling of Project Rex is admirable but given the new depth of his abilities we are assigning an advocate for . . . "

Knight cut him off.

"We need a weapon, not a well adjusted member of society. A bleeding heart will have me give him time with puppies and we will loose this war. . .with all due respect."

Quest took a deep breath.

"Holiday is exactly what he intended her to be Walter. Within the limits of the technology she is alive, and will spend years adapting to transformation like any other EVO. If what Doctor Rylander said before his death is to be believed this is the FIRST instance of an engineered EVO. Further more, the limited control she was granted allowed her to retrofit her immune system into a perfect nanite shield. You put those to together and you have what we need to vaccinate this world."

Knight raised an eyebrow.

"You want to CREATE EVOs?"

"Pandora's box is open nano technology is not going away even after the war. If we can turn people into EVO's who's only ability is to be immune to further nanite infestation the Committee and the President will want that made our top priority."

Knight was silent as he kept talking.

"We will of course need to keep Holiday and Rex close until we figure it all out. She will never be human again but her brain seems to be processing emotion just the same as before, the rest of her mind is more binary on and off yes and no unable to easily determine subtitles, so she'll need to be watched. Rex even thinks shes taken with him, she seeking out strong emotions and if I had to guess the boys her great hope. Poor kids going to get his heart broken but such is life. "

Knight turned to leave not caring what Quest thinks any longer.

"Old man while your pampering them and while he's getting over the damn fool idea someone that much older then he is would be interested in video games and making out on Saturday night he'll be powerless. Go ahead tell the Committee what you want and I'll get it done. Assuming of course we the human race doesn't end in the mean time."

End and not the end

Director cut coming soon with alternate chapter three and a new fourth chapter. After I do that secret santa of course.


	5. Chapter 5

A note on what this is: Consider this a what might have been story. This replaces chapter 3 onward, and things turn out a bit different hehehehe.

Generator Rex: The Modern Prometheus Chapter Three Directors Cut: "Though The Glass Darkly"

A heart beat a go Six told Holiday he didn't think she was thinking straight.

"You are saying I'm not thinking right? Six SAYING THAT is enough to put me in a cage, and not a lab!"

The man in green didn't mean what he was saying to come out wrong she knew that, but he still said it.

"The probe I'm running for Van Klies moles picked you up screwing with the cafeteria robots. Crawling around in the walls at night and sitting in a wheel chair all day. You are pulling a fast one on Fell and he's too arrogant to notice. What am I supposed to think?"

She closed her eye tight not wanting to look at him. If he told anyone, or filed any kind of report it was already over for her.

"That I have to play this just right, or its game over."

"Sara we are not out to get you. Knight is an ass we all know that but he knows an asset when he sees one."

Holiday walked over to him, and put her hand on his face.

"Rex is the golden boy, because there is only one of him. I am a nanite controller Six. A simpler less advanced version of whats in his chest that can only run a small closed system, ME. Cutting my brain open can give them a lot of very valuable information, the kind that is worth the risk of making Rex uncooperative or crashing his power for months."

He took her hand by the wrist, and she could tell he was speaking from the heart, even if it was all misplaced.

"Sara I will protect you."

Holiday felt her heart-break.

"Six . . you can't play cowboy and get me out of this. My head on a platter might give them controllable nanotechnology. That's this war and the NEXT one. Perfectly reasonable people will look at me and wonder if its worth it. The only way, THE ONLY WAY, to be safe is to have something valuable NOW to make them question if giving THAT up is worth what they MIGHT cut out of me. You know its true because it is exactly what happened with Rex."

Rex woke up to Six's hand over his mouth. He sat up, and saw Noah looking at the corner.

"What the heck?"

"No questions, just answers Rex, and for the love of god keep your bio's from spiking we use that when we can't listen you know that."

The EVO kid, looked confused.

"Noah did you dime me out too five oh?"

Noah didn't talk, but Six did.

"What in hell does that even mean?"

"Call the cops you know Hawaii FIVE OH?"

Six sat next to Rex very tired, and very drained.

"No he did not. I told him in no uncertain terms to sit down, and stay silent while we do this, because sending him out to the bathroom would set off a security sweep."

Rex shook the cob webs out.

"She isn't used to living under a microscope Six. I am and I still can't stand it some times. You need to just blow off steam some times you know?"

Six looked at him like he swore in church, Rex in fact could suddenly remember being smacked by an old woman for doing just that. For once he didn't share his happy tidbit of his lost past, he had other things to worry about.

"SHE is not HERSELF, and you will remember that or I will make you! Now I need to walk a tightrope with no NET very shorty. I need information, everything you've done, leave nothing out or I might not have what I need understand me?"

Rex stood up fast.

"Dios Mio Six! If somethings wrong with HER it CAN'T be HER fault YOU get that right? 'Cause it's all . . . mine."

Six took his glasses off and the boy learned he was half blind for the first time.

"The man who took my eye, killed my wife. It's his fault I lost HER and IT, but if I bump into something tomorrow, its mine, because I'm an adult, and it's been five years."

Rex only half understood, for very understandable, very human reason that he was completely entitled to.

"Well it's been three weeks for her! If she's . . . wrong somehow I'll fix it, I'll throw nanites at her all night if I have to!"

Six put his glasses back on.

"You can not help her Rex, and if you force it they will just move her to another facility. Now give me everything that happened, and don't leave anything out if you want to keep working with the Doctor."

Rex looked over at Noah nervously.

"Sara just needed me. . . "

Holiday walked back and forth in front of her mirror, trying to figure out if she looked convincing.

_Yesterday these people thought I was wheel chair bound, and now I'm going to have to walk out of the room, and into a world of trouble if Six told a soul. Oh Six . . . IT IS too much to ask to get you to stay out of this I know that now, but you playing cowboy might get me killed._

Private Jones opened the door right on time, and Holiday tried to meet her with a smile. The sight of Holiday STANDING there made her to a double take.

"Morning Kenwyn, I had an eventful night last night how about you?"

"Doctor I thought you were weeks away from this?"

"Maintenance went quicker then I thought last night so I spent a few hours on my eye, and I found out something important. Everything I was sending to fix it was not actually getting there because of what I'm pretty sure is an error code that happened . . . . during installation. So I had a pile of nanites not doing anything. I re-tasked them and boom my repair schedule got moved up from weeks to hours."

The younger woman raised an eyebrow.

"That sounds like a lot of nanites Doctor."

"It's my eye Kenwyn I wasn't going to lose it without a fight."

Holiday's nanite driven heart skipped a beat as she waited for her guard to deiced if she was lying to her or not.

_She still green, let that be enough please. I can handle Fell I know it, but White reads her reports on me._

"Well Doctor let's get you down to the lab."

A few well thought out lies, and a long walk to the lab later things started going potentially wrong. She could hear Rex moaning.

"My stomach!"

Fell was well-being himself.

"For the last time you fool a child WHAT DID YOU EAT? Answer or I break out the stomach pump!"

Rex made eye contact with her and she could tell he was making it all up. For the second time in half an hour Holiday found her fate hinging on Kenwyn Jones being an idiot. No one was this slow in Providence, except for Rex but he was an amnesiac and had an excuse. Holiday stepped up.

"Oh for petes sake Rex what did you do?"

He put on a good performance of playing sick, Holiday should know she'd seen this act enough.

"I lost a bet with Noah, and . . . drank a bottle of Tabasco sauce."

Fell looked like a man who never had kids forced to babysit.

"Get on the scanner I suppose."

Holiday tried to salvage her plans.

"I don't think we need to do that, Doctor Fell. Noah would have to answer to White Knight if he did anything that stupid."

Fell looked on as she put her hand under Rex's chin, and gently made him look her in the eye.

"Your fine aren't you?"

". . . yes. . SIX . . umm wouldn't let me see you."

Holiday put on her best fake smile, and hoped Rex was trying to say something was up with Six. Guessing he had a talk with Rex after leaving her room she tried to get the message across without saying it.

"Well as you can see I'm walking around now, and that's a world away from that wheel chair. As for Six we will just have to talk later ok? Things are changing, but that's life Rex, it WILL be OK. Now I need to get to work with Doctor Fell, so get going!"

Rex hopped off the table, and walked out of the lab. Fell popped an aspirin and spoke.

"How do you get any work done with that boy?"

"Don't think of him like that. He's more grown up then he lets on. "

Next: "Schrodinger's cat "


	6. Chapter 6

Generator Rex: The Modern Prometheus Chapter Four Directors Cut: "Schrödinger's cat "

Notes: On the matter of the title. I'm trying to take the theme of Schrödinger's cat (The idea that until a randomly determined event actually perceived it occupies all possibility at once. )and spin it into the idea that unless we actually bother to perceive the results we WILL end up with the less favorable outcome . Or in language normal people can understand If we leave things up in the air they will turn out badly because we didn't DO SOMETHING to at least try for a good outcome.

Does this make sense? OK on to the story.

Holiday looked at the skin-tight cotton thin weave of micro-circuitry Doctor Fell had in his hands.

"You want me to wear that? Am I jumping out of a cake?"

"Its is a sensor mesh suit Doctor Holiday we need readings now that you can move."

She snapped back.

"I've got swimsuits that give away less!"

Fell looked at her like it was still years ago, and she was just a lab assistant.

"If you will not cooperate, this is going to take longer."

"You want readings? Full body biometrics right? We have arm bands for that now, they are faster just as good, and I don't have to run around the zoo wearing a handkerchief!"

Fell lowered his head.

"You pulled out the STERILE testing lab and let Rex run about that horrid place? How do you avoid contamination?"

"The whole planets infected nothings sterile. . . except for Knights office. The entire building if fitted with a saturation alarm more than sensitive enough to let you know if theirs anything you need to worry about filtering out."

Fell looked up at her and for the first time since she'd known him he looked OLD.

"The whole world is just learning to live with the things isn't it? You'd think Schrodinger's cat would try to get out of the damn box."

Holiday hated herself more than a little, as she put her hand on the old mans shoulder.

"The cat can't understand its living and dead all at the same time, but I do understand Doctor. We are all trapped in a box with something that IS lethal and learning to just hope it doesn't kills us. That isn't right or natural."

The old man looked up at her, and for the first time smiled a bit.

"I suppose the rest of us will just have to fight that much harder to get out of the damn box."

Lying to him about what she could do was risky, and no matter what the reports said she couldn't be sure what he though until now. Holiday knew now he'd started to trust her, and that might be enough.

On a balcony high atop Providence Private Kenwyn Jones watching the sun go down, just talking on her cell phone and smoking a cigarette before going on shift. The phone however was playing an mp3 into an earpiece with the volume turned off. A tiny red glow light the growing darkness was easy to miss as a light on head set let someone whisper in her ear.

"Are you sure?"

Kenwyn took a drag of the cigarette, and answered.

"I'm positive she ripped into Six saying that her head was last years version of whatever Rylander put in the golden child's heart."

The whisperers response made her heart skip a beat.

"If this is correct my dear there will be a job offer extended you have my word."

"Thank you . . .my lord."

Rex rested his head on the mirror of the level 5 restroom room. He was ready to snap.

"Three weeks of this crap. I'm alone while I'm in the bathroom, and three, two, one."

As if on que a Providence grunt and enters a stall. The Evo glanced in the trash can at all the toilet paper he tossed in there a minute ago. If the grunt had to USE the toilet he'd have come back out to look around for a roll or at least asked Rex to toss him one if he needed it.

"Even in the bathroom."

He closed his eyes and tried to remember the last time he laughed it was when he was sneaking around with Holiday.

"She's in the same spot thanks to me."

Rex knocked on the stall with the grunt in it.

"Hay buddy, mind telling Six the dog needs a walk 'kay?"

Twenty minutes later Six was looking at him funny in the hallway.

"Everyone's still on the edge around here, you know that right?"

"You've had people in the room with me constantly for WEEKS. I've not gotten to ANY trouble."

Six shook his head so wanting to rip him a new one for running around with Holiday. That however was too risky to bring up, and Rex pulling this on him was either a dirty trick to try to get an ounce of freedom, or more likely he didn't think it was wrong and really did think he deserved a break.

"Yes you HAVE been behaving. One of these days we'll talk about that. I'm going to have to make some arrangements. Noah and BoBo need a break, so I guess you do too. The thing is this isn't over Rex not by a long shot, so do me a favor and tell me you won't do anything if I make this happen."

Rex looked confused.

"Umm what now?"

Six didn't blink.

"Doctor Fell has relaxed the restrictions on Doctor Holiday, and with the mole hunt on she's one of the few I can rule out. Shes still dealing with a lot Rex, so I want you to tell me you wont cause any trouble, because that will show badly on her. So if you do you'll have lied to my face. Understand?"

Rex to his credit looked him in the eye.

"I promise Six."

In the void Holiday labored at her command console.

" Status of all systems please."

The visual Holiday indicated all green, save for the eye. Her eye was a huge cost, and she'd need a prosthetic now. Her original was beyond saving and she'd need a replacement at this point. The cost she told herself was worth it.

"Reconnect left optic nerve, and give status."

The flashing symbol she now recognized.

"Oh yea that's what I wanted to see."

The work done for the first time since the system was "installed" resources became free and once labored processes began to speed up. Three hundred seconds later she sat up in bed feeling great.

"Oh yea today will be a good day."

"Here's to hoping I guess."

She sat up like a shot the bed sheet falling away from her and giving Six a quick show.

"WHAT THE HELL SIX!"

The man in green didn't seem to put off by her being angry and semi-nude.

"I wanted to catch you before you went to bed."

He took a pillow to the face, and excused himself from the room.

A minute or two later Holiday opened the door in long T-shirt reading "Angel Investigations" left over from college.

"OK AGENT SIX! Lets make this perfectly crystal clear! When I am in bed I am out cold unable to wake up for an amount of time related to the amount of maintenance I have to do. It is very disconcerting to wake up after being helpless to find someone in the room with you!"

Six leaned in whisper and drive a point home.

"Sorry I though that was another lie. Fell and approved you for lite duty, and Rex needs a sitter for a few hours at least. I suggest you get him straightened out because Callan and company have filled the void the past month."

She looked totally lost.

"You are putting this on me? How the hell do you do that?"

"I'm not, I'm just reminding you that regardless of whats going on we have a war to fight. You and Rex need to get over this, or rather he does. His biometrics have been all over the place, the rest of us have the luxury of just doing our job and letting the nights be however long they need have to. "

The Doctor started putting it together.

"Loosing sleep yourself Agent Six?"

"For a while yea. That's what you do when you lose someone. You ask yourself "how did I let this happen?", and I had to do that twice. I got over it, and I'm glad to have you back no matter how much you've changed, but we need to get back to fighting a war. Things can't stay up in the air with you two we just can't afford it."

She put her head down the last few years flashing before her eyes.

"So that's just it then?"

"I'm still on your side Sara, but we have just used up all the slack we have. Anything more and we will start judging our good days and bad days by the size of the casualty lists."

"Still the good soldier hu Six?"

He turned to leave.

"You can relieve me in the morning. I sent Noah home already he was looking like he needed it."

"Don't bother my sleep cycle is complete. I'll be ready in a few minutes Agent Six."

The door slammed as he walked up the hall.

Rex sat in the petting zoo wishing for a cheese burger from this dinner he knows two states over. Instead he sat underneath a tree with eyeballs on it.

"No Rex you need to behave! You need someone in the room with you all the time because you might run off or . . . .turn someone into something.. . . Blinky what I wouldn't give from just one person to say It's OK Rex I know your not Van Klies lite!"

He felt a hand on his shoulder.

"It's OK Rex I know your not Van Klies lite."

He looked up and say Holiday in her armor, he couldn't help but notice her eye was still not healed.

"Hay what are you all dressed up for?"

"I got half my job back, get up we are going out for some training."

Rex smiled and stood up.

"You mean they needed someone to take the dog for a walk."

"According to the paperwork it is an overnight desert survival training session. "

She watch him shake his head just a bit just like someone she knew.

"You know they are just giving us enough rope to hang ourselves right?"

"Hit the showers, I'll meet you out side in 20 I need to send an email then I'm good to go."

She winked at him with her good eye.

"Don't keep me waiting."

Doctor Holiday was so glad have this place back to being HER lab again. After cutting out her bad eye with the same level of care some people would give to plucking a hair she tossed it in a specimen try. Labeling it correctly to go with the emailed sent to Fell about an hour after the old man went off shift ensuring he wouldn't get it till morning. Placing the specimen tray where the email indicated he could find it to verify her findings she turned her attention to finding a replacement.

"Lets see what they have in green, don't want to clash with the one I have."

Looking though a choice of cybernetic replacement eyes meant for people who lost one in combat. Picking out an older model she held it up to her remaining eye.

"Here we go, nothing fancy, light weight, and it's even made by the Tyrell Corporation. Oh for the days when I was just an intern."

Attaching the implant to her optic nerve while sitting at her desk with the aid of a small mirror, activated the implant and shut herself down. Her body sat limp in an office chair while in the void the circle of light responded with lighting speed now that the repairs were complete, and its resources freed up.

"Reactivate left optic never turn the pain back on, and scan for new hardware."

The new organ popped up like she was installing a web came on a laptop.

"OK make sure nanotech repairs stop at the nerve, and reboot please."

One hundred and eighty seconds later she woke up and started getting use to not having one eye by looking at herself in the hand mirror.

"Oh yea, that's better. Wow the manual for this thing said 6 weeks of healing before turning it on. Being an EVO has its upside."

For the first time in a month she took a moment to just look at herself in the mirror. If their was a difference she couldn't see it. That didn't sit well with her.

"It's like looking at a picture of who I was really."

She pulled her hair out of that bun she'd been using for the past few years, and tied it in a pony tail.

"I love the long hair look, but something needs to change."

Another quick return to her circle in the darkness, and she entered a few alien symbols she hoped she understood.

"Now reset phenylalanine and eumelani levels and reboot please."

Rex met the Doc with a backpack at the main exit and smiled at the sight of a green haired Holiday walking over to him.

"Haha Did you play with hair dye or drop a test tube?"

"I was installing my eye and sent a wrong command. Which works perfectly by the way. "

She leaned in close and put her hand on his face. He blushed as she spoke.

"Maybe if your really lucky I'll show you my interface."

Rex looked like an anime character with a nose bleed.

A minute later they took off on his hover bike toward the valley below the base. In their wake it began with a tiny circle of red easily lost in the setting sun.

Rex shouted so he could be heard of the wind whipping in their faces.

"Sure you don't want a helmet? "

Holidays hair whipped in the wind as she answered.

"Nope I'm good! When you hit the river slow up and start looking for a wrecked pickup from the 20's. I've camped out here before."

Rex's bike machine stopped on a dime surprisingly, and she hopped off as it vanished.

At bit oblivious Rex tossed his backpack aside, plopped down on the dirt and spoke.

"Oh yea it's nice to see the sky again. I don't know how White does it."

She picked the pack back up, and started jokingly kicking him in the but to get him up again.

"Over here you! I have many fine rocks arranged around a fire pit I will lovingly compel you to find wood for a few feet this way. "

Rex muttered as he got back up and started rummaging around for scrap wood. With a thud he plopped a load of scrap into fire pit, as Holiday pulled off the top half of her armor revealing the same T-shirt she was wearing when she woke up today.

"There we go! Now pay attention this is how you start a fire in the field."

To Rex's amazement she pulled out the largest bottle of tequila he'd ever seen and poured a shot and a half worth on the dry wood, and fired a signal flare into the pit. It went up like lit match.

"Oh wait that's how you start a fire in A field not in THE field. We'll have to cover that next time."

The Evo's eyes got wide.

"Oh mi dios!"

She grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him in for a kiss.

"Come on let's have some fun!"

Rex pulled back and his face turned grim. It was truthfully a new look for him in her mind he was always smiling.

"They are right to worry about you aren't they? It's not your fault I keep telling Six, it's all my fault. I'll make sure they take care of you and your sister. I promise you I will do whatever it takes to make sure your taken care of, and your sister."

She put her hand on his face, and smiled.

"How can you be afraid of your past? It's so clear you've nothing bad in you."

He replied in a heart beat like he was just waiting for someone to ask him that.

"I told you, I sold three people to a gangster. That stacks old school Rex in the jerk category. I'm different now because Six found me in a hole in the ground, and watched me like a hawk ready to. . . "

Her hand was still on his face, she knew he didn't want to pull away, and then she asked why.

"Ready to what?"

Then he answered and she knew she had him.

"Six never told me, but White told Noah it his job to kill me if I hulk out again. I know he looks at me like I can fix everything one day but I KNOW that I blank out because someone DID THAT TO ME to keep the damage I can do to a minimum. The people who made me knew I was trouble, and the put the dog on a leash before it bite someone. Fat lot of good that did them, but don't you worry I'm going to make it all right for you at least."

She smiled a sad little smile. She always knew Six was hiding something about the arrangement he made with White Knight, but she never guessed it went that far.

"Rex you didn't hurt me you saved me. The only thing I did was take a look at my life and decide I wanted to LIVE a little more. Do you really think I'd be out here id I didn't want to Rex?"

"No."

Six looked out over the desert from a balcony interned to house a rail gun if the base ever came under prolonged siege. The sun was rising, and he felt the weight of the past few weeks baring down on him. It had been a long road getting here, and after all of this the man in green couldn't help but feel tired, and just a bit alone. They where both still out there some where.

Foot steppes came up behind him.

"Hello Kenwyn."

"Sir, the Doctor doesn't need a babysitter anymore, and I haven't been given any new orders. I figured I'd check in."

He found himself smiling just a bit.

"Most people would take the opportunity for an easy shift. You're a good soldier Kenwyn."

"Thank you . . Six. "

She lite a cigarette and blew a puff his way without making it obvious she was doing it. As if on que he turned to leave, and she slipped one of three pistol like weapons into her hand. Kenwyn lined up a shot on Six's back and pulled the trigger. He ducked to his left the dart missing him by a mile as pulled his swords.

"It had to be you."

She pulled a second gun while firing off two more darts keep him at bay.

"It's nothing personal, Seven always said you where one of the good guys, but Daddy and his good wishes can't stop the future!"

He smashed the darts with his swords and charged. Before he was half way to her the second gun was brought to bear on him and she unloaded it at his chest. This time the projectiles where incendiary rounds designed to melt though the hide of the most powerful EVO's. Six's swords took them like rain on a windshield.

"Seven was a cold warrior, and Knighted agent of the British Crown. What do you think he'd think of a traitor?"

Kenwyn dropped the gun in her off-hand rolled to her right to avoid Six's charge. Her American accent went at the same time. Six could tell the neighborhood in north London were she picked it up even after all these years.

"I'd imagine it'd be something like "Tie her to the traitors gate and let them droned in the Themes". If only the old bastard had bough me dolly or some such I'd not be concerned with ending up on the wrong end of evolution!"

Impossibly he was closer to her then she though he could be and he kicked her square in the face making her regret not having her helmet on. To her credit she manged to stay on her feet, and put some distance between her and Six hoping he'd be looking to capture her and not go for the kill. She was right.

"Kenwyn put the gun down, and I'll make sure your father get a phone call. His connections will get you deported, and you'll probably not even see jail time, but don't be stupid enough to think Van Klies can turn you into anything more evolved than a slobbering monster!"

She opened up with her third gun, and again he blocked the rounds. This time the liquid nitrogen bullets shattered causing his super heated blades to shatter on contact with the cold just like the MI6 file the man in green suggested they would.

"Sorry love, but I get the star treatment."

Six was hit with a dart from the gun in her main had and it was over.

Three hundred seconds after she shutdown Holiday woke up in Rex's arms. It felt good waking up in someones arms even if she was only unconscious for a little while. Her time at her command console, her circle in the dark was uneventful. Considering it was the first time she'd done certain things since becoming an EVO that was a relief. She opened her eyes, and saw Rex's smiling face.

"That quick?"

She answered.

"That quick, on a good day. Some times things need fixing, or if I need to tell something to do something I can't tell them to do automatically yet. 45 minutes on a stair-master put me out for over an hour day before least."

"How the heck are you bothered by this?"

Holiday ran her fingers though his hair as she watched the sun rise.

"How are you bothered by something you can't fully remember? I just am, that's all."

"Yea will the suns in my eyes that bothers me so roll over!"

"It is not, I'm looking at the sun over your shoulder."

Rex stood up, and she felt a thud as she rolled out of his grasp and into the hard ground.

"Rex! Sheesh morning after behavior is another set of skills I'm going to have to teach you I guess."

He barked at her.

"The sun doesn't have a tower of smoke coming out of it!"

He was pointing towards the base.

Next "Void and Providence"


	7. Chapter 7

Generator Rex: The Modern Prometheus Chapter Five Directors Cut: "Void and Providence"

Breech walked through the shattered halls of Providence playing a fun game. Van Klies said she could play her fun game all day if she wanted! Unless that is she ran out of playmates.

She walked past a trio of grunts held up in a guard station fighting off a pack of what once was their comrades.

She smiled a wicked little smile.

"Puppies!"

A red portal dumped a few EVO pit-bulls behind the grunts and she walked on to the sounds of men screaming.

She passed the cafeteria were a robot fry cook was protesting to a dead man sitting on his grill smoking up the place that he needed to move so it could begin cleaning the place.

"Hehehe!"

Around the corner Breech found Bio-wolf out of his cage in the Providence holding area. With a boom the large EVO slammed into a wall with the force of several grenades followed by a blond man with a scar over one eye screaming at him.

"DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS WOLF BOY!"

Breech went back to her game.

"Big puppy!"

An EVO Rottweiler appear in a red flash and ran at the man as she walked on.

Further down the way she found Kenwyn, and Breech frowned. The new girl in the pack had bat wings dark blue armored scales, and sharp-looking nails she was putting to good use on a door.

"The new girls still pretty after Van Klies touched her. First pretty Circe now HER. I am still his favorite! I don't want her to look prettier than ME! "

Van Klies walked up behind her, and sounded like a concerned father.

"There you are my dear girl. How is your game going?"

She stomped her foot a bit, and barked angrily.

"I hate it, it is a stupid game!"

He put his over sized metal hand on her head like she was a child.

"Now Breech, whatever is the matter?"

". . new girl . . she's prettier than me. . "

"Dear dear girl, you simply have to know that you are my favorite. I have no one else that can do what you do my child. That includes our Rex by the way."

The hallway echoed with the sounds of a sudden impact.

"Speaking of which, that sounds like him now! Why don't you go down there and let him know just how cross you are with him over that horrid date you too had?"

The girl began walking off towards the noise muttering as she went.

"He broke all my pretty things. . . not NICE!"

Holiday road a EVO centaur into a wall, jumping off a second before impact. She spun around finding Rex slamming two of them into each other with his over sized metal hands, and then using those giant boots of his to kick the pair of them into the far wall. She shouted at him!

"Rex they've all got hand prints on their chests! They might be our people!"

"Ooops sorry!"

He went to work trying to cure their enemies, and she took a moment to find an intercom on the wall. It was dead the same as their radios. Whatever hit the system hit it hard, and considering this was the second such attack in a month she wasn't shocked at the damage.

"We haven't finished cleaning up the mess from last time. REX I could use you over here!"

He wondered over pissed off at the situation. He smacked the control panel and used his power.

"They were all horses by the way. Oh damn Knight pulled the plug on the system. Why the heck would HE shut everything down?"

Holiday tried to sound less worried then she was.

"The Keep if it looses contact with base it will return to find out why. It was probably the quickest way to call for help."

He surprised her, she always liked it when he did that. Except for this time.

"Knight calling for help? What are they coming to bleach the place?"

Holiday looked at the ground a moment as she spoke.

"In case of a total loss of the base YES. Maybe we should get you out of here Rex."

He was so ready rush in and play the hero, Holiday loved this about him.

"OK we take a long walk though Providence. Van Klies will notice and send in the cannon fodder. That will be people he's turned, I cure as we go, and by the time we get to the man himself we have an army of angry grunts behind us."

She also loved when he was acting dumber than he should. It was cute, and he couldn't help it. You can't replace a k-12 education and the social skills most people pick up while going though all that, AND learn to fight a war. _One of these days _Holiday told herself _I'm going to fix that brain of his. Until then I think he still needs a bit of hand holding. _

"Rex this fight was over before we got here. Last time they came here to destroy this place kill Knight and show the world nothing can stop EVO power or whatever catchphrase Klies is using this week. We haven't had time to recover from that, and with the mole hunt our best troops are on the Keep because the green rookies we replaced them with don't know enough to be as dangerous. We are going to find Van Klies with his foot on our collective throats, demanding something. If he didn't want something this place would be a crater. "

He looked confused while it all sunk in. Rex hated to lose, and that was something else about him she liked.

"So what we walk in there and give him whatever he wants? Then what hope he just leaves? It will never happen and you know it!"

_Good Rex put it together I know you can. _

Rex shook his head a bit trying to see though his anger, Holiday smiled a guilty little smile when he spoke again. This wasn't a time for happy thoughts, but he was learning and that WAS A GOOD THING.

"We need to figure out what Van Klies wants or no one here is getting out alive are they?"

_Good boy._

"That's right Rex. "

Breech wandered around the silent halls of Providence.

"Not right not RIGHT AT ALL! Rexy likes to make noise. . . "

Holiday hung upside down from a ceiling support while Rex stepped around a corner drawing her attention.

"Hay Breech, you come looking for me!"

She smiled.

"Mommie dog!"

A large two-headed poodle appeared from one of her portals, and Rex rolled his eyes.

"Really? A Poodle, come on!"

The thing jumped at Rex and he caught in air with her over sized smack hands, and slammed it into the ground like a football.

Holiday flipped to the ground silent as a ghost behind Breach to jab a needle in her neck. Impossibly the girl spun on her heals grabbing her wrist with one of her oversized hands. Breech screamed.

"AAAAA! I don't need my medication anymore Van Klies said I don't need IT!"

Holiday smiled matters of life and death aside this was kind of fun.

"Shhh I'm a Doctor."

Then she used her free hand to punch the girl square in the jaw. Breech raged.

"YOU RUINED MY DATE AND MADE ME CRY!"

In a red flash Breech's three remaining hands grabbed her from different angles. Holiday glanced over at Rex still wrestling with the dog. Somehow being here like this,fighting was like scratching an itch she never knew she had.

"You know Breech, Rex and I talked about your date. He wasn't scared, he didn't hate you, he was just a bit worried. We CAN help you kid."

The girl pulled Holidays limbs in four different directions, and she looked the Doctor in the eye. Something in the girls eyes was unsettling, a 15-year-old shouldn't have eyes like that.

"Miss smarty skirts, like the nurse that tells daddy I shouldn't need pills. . . Daddy tells the miss smarty skirt to shut up if she wants to keep her license. Van Klies tells me I don't need my pills, and he gives me the bad people to play with!"

Her face twisted with anger and Holiday was momentarily ignorant of the danger in her shock.

"They all broke you down didn't they? Van Klies found you after you changed and built you back up how he wanted didn't he?"

In her mind Holiday saw it all. Breach wasn't protected as a child, instead she was left alone with the monsters, and a monster she became. Something in that thought made her hate herself.

Rex screamed and Holiday snapped out of it a heart beat to late, as the girl opened a portal right on top of her, and Holiday saw herself cut limb from limb before being drawn into the void.

"SAAARRRAAA!"

Holiday landed in what was once Green ville Ohio, her left hand severed at the wrist, and both her legs literally cut off at the knees. Her right hand the one Breech had to keep in the palm of her oversized hand to control the syringe was the only one still attached. Before she could scream Holiday crashed back to her command console HARD.

The visual Holiday did not look good, and the Doctor herself was close to panic.

"OKOKOK! Blood loose cauterize the stumps! NO WAIT odds of reattachment afterword if I do that?"

An alien symbol she was pretty sure meant a number in the single digits flashed in front of her.

"Well screw that! Reboot I'll put myself back together and come back to plug the leeks."

The system seemed to object with a flashing red image of her brain.

"Yea I might stroke out I get that, but it wont matter of I'm dead or a one-armed legless gimp stuck in a pocket dimension! Now FORCE RESTART!"

With a jolt to her system she wouldn't soon forget Holiday sat up in the middle of main-street Green ville. Her limbs where laying a few feet away making her crawl n their direction. The area around her was filling with the sound of animals growling, the sky filled with flashes of red light, and every nightmare Sara Holiday ever had about being alone in the dark came flooding back.

"Rex I wish you where here."

A moment later she was using a few extra hooks and clamps built into her armor mean for field repair to hold her hand and legs on. Blood leaking everywhere she scanned the area for a place to hide, and decided to hell with it.

"I'll be in a coma before a find one anyway!"

She clamped her eyes shut, and prayed to shut down.

"Come on don't make me wait five god damn minutes!"

Another jolt later she was back in the void, and the visual holiday was protesting.

"Wow low blood pressure actually brought me back faster. OK now those are wounds not stumps you can half-see the limbs so fix the damn things. . . and make it fast!"

Anther message she was able to read but to a human would be nonsense showed up.

"Crap. . . Muscles skin, and major arteries first. The bones can wait. . . .Think Sara . . . Recall all nanites to my brain first then do it and fix it all!"

2820 minutes later she sat up.

"Too long, way too long. . . "

A flat emotionless voice whispered in her ear, and she shuttered.

"You blood all went back inside, you are a new toy. "

_Oh hell Rex told me all about this one. I need to get out of here I need to get back to him, because he can't fight a war alone. _

"If you're a new toy you need to behave she's really angry today."

For a moment Holiday couldn't help but remember watching a vampire movie with her sister a kid. Nicole insisted Vampires are the worst kind of monster because they made other people into monsters. This girl she could tell had been in here a very long time.

"Tell me what I need to do to play nice please."

If the girl could see anything falsehood in Holidays eyes she didn't let on. The Doctor stood up, and couldn't help but hear Hippocrates ringing in her mind.

"Well now you just fight who she tells you to. When shes happier we put things in order."

_God you are young enough to be mine aren't you? I'm sorry, I am so sorry but I don't have the time . . _

Holiday looked at the red flashes in the sky she assumed where Breech's powers being used again and again.

"What are those lights?"

As if talking about the weather the girl turned her head to look.

"That's her."

Holiday grabbed girls head with perfect accuracy and precision. Then she snapped her neck like a twig. Her tiny body went limp, and as if trying to prevent further harm dropped to her knees coddling the girls twitching body.

"Shhhh I'm sorry I am so sorry, but . . . oh god in heaven . . . "

As if on que the portal appeared to take the now broken toy out of Breeches domain, and Sara Holiday road a dead girl back to reality.

Struggling back to her feet she saw Breech one eye swollen shut and both her upper arms bent the wrong way at the elbows. Holiday could spot a concussion when she saw one. The girl just ranted ignoring her presence.

"Broken broken her too broken. . . "

Holiday set the girl down very gently as if it still mattered.

"Breech what happened?"

"Santo Michele Arcangelo, ha gettato il diavolo dal paradiso."

Turning from the girl Holiday passed grunts in battled damaged armor sorting the dead from the injured, and noticed the Keep hovering outside a broken window. Greg Callan was getting his chest bandaged by Fell, as she passed. Fell spoke, and Callan she could see in his eyes didn't have it in him to speak.

"Hello Doctor Holiday considering my morning reading I am glad to see you. I however suggest you go to the main battlements. Your charge is there with Director Knight, and his bios are bottomed out."

As she turned to leave, Callan spoke up through broken teeth.

"Sara . . Six went down in the first wave."

She couldn't help but give that worm Fell the evil eye for making the hurt man tell her. Then she jogged off.

Holiday found White Knight in tarnished armor watching Rex trying in vain to resurrect Six. Knight flashed her a dart from his right hand, and a single tear came from her one real eye.

Unbelievably he put a hand on her shoulder and spoke.

"I pulled this from his side. Its a Botulinum type B dart. The _activated neurotoxin_ we use to kill level one EVO's. It's fourteen times what it would have taken. I know this kid will never make it work this time, but I had to let him try."

Next: "Judgment Day"


	8. Chapter 8

Generator Rex: The Modern Prometheus Final "Judgment Day"

Three and a half hours of grilling not by White Knight but the Committee itself ended with agreement IT would work.

After that Sara Holiday her green hair in a pony tail stood in the lobby of CIA headwaters in Langley Virginia. She was watching a maintenance droid carve into a wall, adding the one hundred and twentieth star to a mural. This was how America memorialized its fallen agents.

"All nanites have at least some level of programming or they couldn't DO anything. Being able to for the first time give any kind of commands directly to the tiny machines myself had made it pretty easy to produce an error. Finding a way to error the nanites to the point where they crash like a cheap windows PC full of viruses wasn't that hard. . . as long as you are someone learning to speak their language. My plan was simple after that. Isolate an area however you can, a magnetic field, physical shielding, or a full on force field like the one in Kiev it didn't matter. Then you send out the right commands to the nanites in that confined area until all the properly function nanites error out and shut down. The remaining active nanites are then collected with a powerful magnet for later study. The result is a nanite free area that as we know from White Knight could be resupplied indefinably."

Next to her a Red haired women in her mid fifties in a U.S. Army NCO's uniform listened.

"Now none of this is quick, easy, or cheap mind you, and putting a human through it will mean no one with anything in their body that magnetism can hurt like a pace maker or a metal pin in a shoulder could do it. But that being said White Knight will no longer be the only nanite free human after this. Slowly humanity will be able to build larger and larger areas without nanites, and for a lucky few the threat of suddenly going EVO will be gone forever. The human race can begin to fight back, and all thanks to what I'd never have learned if not for Rex."

Holiday looked at the ground a bit as the older women spoke.

"No one will ever know, that's the sad part. The governments of the world can not use this to save everyone, just a few think tanks and leaders that they know WILL BE ABLE to figure it out sooner or later. People will still go EVO the war will go on, but in the long run you . . and Rex . . really have given them THE advantage."

Holiday still had trouble wrapping her head around it. The Sargent Major of the US army, its highest ranked NCO was Six's mother. How the hell that got him to being a hired gun that signed on with Providence she would never understand.

"Sargent O'Hara. . .Shana I'm sorry we lost S. . your son, he really was the best of us."

The older women didn't bat an eyelash. Yea this was Six's Mom all right.

"If you want to honor my son Doctor, win this war. He just wasn't into anything esoteric, and if he lived he'd have ended up some place simple filling his days with decent work. His old man ended up a janitor at a high school in Jersey. Spending his after hours keeping the place free of dealers, and mentoring kids all in American sign language."

Holiday made eye contact as Six's mother turned to leave.

"I admit I don't know how to go ahead without him."

If their was a doubt in Holidays mind about how much this woman knew about her OTHER current situation it got put to rest as she left.

"Once upon a time, I knew a bright lieutenant named Falcon. He had some REAL potential, even if he was an ass, and almost got himself drummed out. His older brother pulled a few strings and got him another shot. Take a moment to register that a JOE got another shot, ask your friend Callan what that involves and you'll lose sleep. Falcon ended up getting hooked on smack. Don't ruin your second chance Doctor Holiday, you don't get a third no matter how good you are."

Rex walked into the briefing room five minutes early, wanting to not cause trouble for once. Sara had asked him to play nice till he was back from DC. He found the standard TV screen with Whites face on it, and a dark-haired man in blue-green body armor with a computer console on one arm.

"Rex on time for once, I'd have hired someone to tickle your dick a long time ago if that would do it."

Whites attempted to jab at him bounced off the new more mature Rex.

"That government issue rubber woman you got in their spring a leak again White?"

The head of Providence didn't laugh, but didn't get angry either, and if you looked close enough he might have smiled a little. This was White and Rex now, as long as Rex followed the rules, he got as much leeway White gave anyone.

"Well Special Agent Rex, this is Agent Steel, on loan from N-Tek. I trust you read the briefing?"

Rex nodded.

"I was in combat most of the morning, but I read the report on the flight back from LA. N-Tek had a none self-powering kind of nanite, and you've tried to rebuild what you guys lost since the event right?"

The man smiled a bit, and Rex was getting a creepy feeling as the man introduced himself.

_This guy looks like he's eyeballing me WAY to close. White had better do background checks on new hires I swear if he grabs my ass . . . _

"Hola Hermono, I'm Max Steel. I've been asked to be one of your handlers for the next few months."

Rex didn't believe him, but went along with it anyway.

"So you are filling in while they look for a replacement for Six?"

Rex knew this was the guy they hired to keep an eye on the pair of EVO's they NEEDED too much.

_Sara will defend this guy I know she will, but he is here to watch us I KNOW IT. I'd bet $20 on him giving me " a talk" some time today. _

"That's the idea. Mind giving me the grand tour?"

"Well assuming I'm not wrestling with the monster of the week, consider me at your disposal."

Knight chimed in.

"I'm glad your willing to play ball Rex. Keep Agent Steel company until Holiday gets back from the Hill. Max its good they have some of your bugs worked out we've missed you in the field the past few years. I've got a conference call with the old ball and chain I'll tell Rachel you're doing fine without tech support breathing down your neck for once. Rex he's not fully cleared until tomorrow morning, and I will get crap if you let him go anywhere but the can alone. That makes this request for a tour guide an order understand?"

Rex put his hand behind his head a smiled nervously.

"Umm Sure thing!"

The pair left the room, and Rex tried being cool even thinking the guy was here to lecture him.

"Sooo who would have though Knight would have found a women able to stand him?"

Max smiled.

"Me I introduced him to my ex and they hit it off. They are both anal about the rules."

"Yea sooo what do you want to see first the lab or the petting zoo?"

"Ohh defiantly the Zoo."

Holiday hit the shower at a quarter past eleven, her still green hair coming out of braid she had it in all day at last. The trip had been long, and she was sure when she shut down for maintenance it would be three hours of work at least. That was starting to sound like such a long time to be dead to the world.

_I've been to a city on the coast so I might have a cold or flu bug to fight off, and that lunch place looked like I should give my stomach the once over. At least I'm not sleeping alone._

She thought with a grin. A looonnng hot shower later Holiday stepped out into her bedroom, and found Rex half asleep in bed waiting for her. Sliding under the covers, Holiday warped her arms around him, and gave him a wake up kiss.

"MMMmm Long day at the office? Where you misbehaving without me around?"

Rex rolled her over on to her back and looked down at her his trap sprung.

"Why would I misbehave without you around to notice?"

She smiled. _This I just what she needed._

"Why you little . . ."

In the rooms dim light she noticed deep bruises on his chest and arms. Holiday ran her fingers up his chest with a frown.

"Baby what did they do to you while I was away?"

Rex rolled next to her, the mood ruined for the moment.

"And now you are in DOCTOR MODE!"

The tone in her voice made a shiver go up Rex's spine.

"I'm always in Doctor mode lover, some times you like that, and some times you LIKE THAT."

He blushed as she moved him so he was sitting on the side of the bed.

"Now tell me what happened Rex please."

"A little heavy sparing with my new handler. Guys name is Steel."

Rex heart rate picked up as she kept examining him. Sara was looking at him but not looking AT HIM again.

"Max? The Trans-fasic energy that powers those old nano-probes of his don't react well with the nanites released by the event. I guess they got a shielding of some kind working."

Rex started to sound pissy.

"Yea clever guys over at N-tech, I guess."

She looked up at him, with an arched eye brow, Rex was whining because she stopped playing Doctor to well play Doctor.

"Rex, I am just worried that's all. Nothing I haven't been before. "

"You are going to go all Yoda on me now aren't you?"

Holiday kept her cool.

_He's being a baby, again. But then again I'm the one that walked into this with her eyes open. I'm either WITH REX or I'm . . . using him and he's too young to notice. I am not a vampire. _

She put her hand under his chin and made him make eye contact.

"Yes I am, but you need to tell me what happened Rex. "

He melted like he always did. As he spoke she thought.

_Come on Rex, you better than this, I know it. Don't be so petty. _

"He said when he was 18 he had a fling with an agent named Rachel Leeds. She was older and he just woke up one day and said something about "If we ever beat the bad guys we'll have nothing to talk about. ". I mean I get it! He'd have been in deep, but his foster-father N-tech's top guy! She got "Promoted" out-of-the-way, and he got a new partner with babysitter with privileges written all over her. This guy that maybe kissed someone special good-bye and lost her to White Knight of all people, is going to lecture me. He doesn't know me or you, and if not for I don't know YOU I'd have told him to piss off! Maybe that makes you a good influence."

Holiday took a long moment to think.

_He did the right thing that's something._

"Rex, Knight could do his job by sticking you in a corner until you learn to cure EVOs, and we learn to do it ourselves by watching. He brought Max here, so you'd have someone to turn to if . . WE didn't work out. Max brings up a lot of baggage for a guy that hasn't been in the room with his wife in 5 years. Knight is being protective, and more than he needs to. Rex tell me you know all this."

He answered her with simple honesty she thought was so endearing.

"I upset you with all this, I'm sorry. It just pissed me off is all. We do things no one else CAN do, and we put everything into saving people. The only thing I ask for is an ounce of freedom and . . you."

Holiday tried to find the words that wouldn't hurt him. If she was wrong and dieing and coming back did make her a little nuts the time let herself be blind to it was over.

_If I've fooled myself and you're not ready for this, one day you might hurt someone. God Rex did I hurt you without seeing it?_

He spoke again before she could make herself.

"Don't . . .look at me like that I get it OK. If you went all Darth Holiday on me, I wouldn't know any better than to drink a whole bottle of "exploitation NOW". It comes down to this, I've got faith you . . . aren't a bad person. "

Holiday felt a tear from in her one original eye, and she hugged Rex tight, and spoke in a whisper.

"Good boy."

The ever-loving END


End file.
